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MARCO SILVA’S Everton weathered the storm to momentarily lift the grey clouds at Goodison.
It was not a perfect performance but it was a well-earned win against Bournemouth in the wind and rain on Merseyside yesterday.
Everton’s first home league victory since November ended their slump and they will hope this is a turning point in a season that has been threatening to turn sour.
The club’s majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri piled the pressure on Silva in the build-up when he said their position in the table was “not good enough”.
With just one win in eight league games, Silva knew his side needed to respond after such strong words.
And they did so too with second-half goals from Kurt Zouma and Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
It was not straightforward as Bournemouth were the better team for spells. Eddie Howe’s side turned in a decent display but, not for the first time, left empty-handed.
The Cherries have now lost 11 of their last 14 games in all competitions and their return of seven points from a possible 36 is relegation form. Early-season talk of finishing in the top six now looks a distant memory. But it looked like they would end their horror run here in the early stages as they started well despite the awful conditions.
Without Chelsea target Callum Wilson, who was missing through injury, Josh King led the line and the striker almost opened the scoring in the eighth minute after a scramble in the area.
Struggling
David Brooks was the real bright spark as he played off King and the Welshman hit the post in the 14th minute.
Bournemouth had an appeal for a penalty turned down when Brooks went down under a challenge from Idrissa Gueye but it looked like a rare decision referee Anthony Taylor got right.
Everton were struggling as the